Something Wicked
by Cloverfield
Summary: Tokyo is holding its breath. Kaoru is going home. Come hell, high water or rivers of blood, there will be nothing that can stand in her way...
1. The shadows in Her eyes

**DISCLAIMER:** if I owned the Kenshingumi, there would be a lot more red-headed children running around calling out "Oro!" and hitting people with shinais.

**PREFACE: **Set neither in mangaverse nor animeverse but somewhere in between. Featuring the Kenshingumi, with a few other guest characters.

Kenshin X Kaoru pairing. Suggestion of others, if I feel so inclined.

Multi-parter. Be warned.

**Something Wicked.**

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**Part I: The shadows in Her eyes.**

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**No eerie wind howled down the narrow streets, rattling chimes and lending a bite to the already toothy air. 

No shadow passed over the moon, casting darkness on the world of weak, mortal souls.

No unearthly chill prickled up the spines of those few out late on this unseasonably cold night, only the more mundane realisation that they probably should have wrapped up warmer.

No blood had been split on hallowed ground, no demon summoned with virgin sacrifice.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Merely those late night patrons, flitting from bar house to restaurant to gambling den like moths drawn by lanterns, iridescent in the dark shadows that crowded tavern walls.

And still, the air was heavy with expectation.

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**

The dojo glimmered, delicate crystals of ice bejewelled the tiled roof, and the fine-bladed grass glowed blue in pale, frosted moonlight.

The rich, amber light of the lanterns pooled like honey on cold, polished floor-boards.

Kenshin paused from his sewing, lips twitching at the thought that he of all people should wax lyrical.

A sudden gust caught the paper of his open shoji, causing a rattle to travel up the bamboo frame, earthing itself on the beams of the roof.

Distantly, the sound of Yahiko and Sano arguing, and the sound of Kaoru shuffling around in her tabi as she completed her traditional night-time rounds before closing the dojo, leant a warm familiarity to the night air.

No place had ever felt so much like home.

Head bent, he brought his mind back to the task at hand- the gi he was mending had been torn by a protruding nail on the local tofu stand, and the whole left sleeve dangled loosely from the threaded needle.

Metal glimmered in the light, passing through the worn blue cloth like a sword through flesh.

Easily. Permanently. Rending both bone and muscle. In and out, in and out...

Kenshin paused.

Even now, in a night so peaceful, the battousai crept into his thoughts with the surety of a tide drawing in.

_Will you never cease?_

For once, the other in his mind did not answer.

"Kenshin? The tea's still warm. Do you want the last of it before you turn in?"

Startled, he turned, and met the smiling face of the last scion of the Kasshin style.

Kaoru's eyes were unfathomable in the darkness, and the lantern in her slender hand did nothing to pierce the depths of those blue-black pools, spilt on the paleness of her face like ink on parchment.

Her hair, down loose, dark and damp and her navy yakuta only served to further blur her into the shadows of the dojo halls.

Disturbed as he was by the imagery given to him –perhaps by the battousai- unsuited to the woman he knew could outshine the sun, perhaps it was not surprising that her words did not register.

"Kenshin?"

"Sorry. Yes, this one would like the last of the tea."

"I'll bring you the pot."

She was smiling, but he could not see it for the shadows. Unsure as to why it should disturb him so, he stood, laid down his sewing –needle tumbling unnoticed to the floor boards- and moved to take her lantern.

The light on her face did nothing but make her eyes darker, cavernous, inscrutable, and in the depths of them something roiled, curled, twisted.

"Kenshin?"

Her eyes, confused, reminded him that should Sano round this corner –the man's footsteps rattling the floor boards even now- this would be hard to explain.

Not his abandoned sewing, but the tinge of fear, and he, leaning over her, lantern held aloft as if to banish some dark spirit-

"Hey, jou-chan, I'm off. The brat's in bed-"

Sano's voice, brash and tainted by sake, hollowed out the hall, bouncing off paper and bamboo.

_This tableau should not be seen._

The lantern dropped, barely caught by Kaoru's fingers, and Kenshin slipped back into the comfortable, innocent stance of one rurouni.

"Jou-chan, where are ya- oh, hey you two. I'm off. Come and get me if I'm not back by noon- the kitsune'll hang me if I don't show up for my check-up."

Sano didn't notice the tension, or the awkward-dangling lantern, or even the confusion in the ink dark eyes of the girl in question.

Not even the falseness in Kenshin's rurouni smile.

"This one will make sure you are not late, Sano. Good night."

A rustle of fabric, and he was gone, sake jug in hand.

"Good night, Kaoru-dono. This one won't be needing that tea after all."

And then, shoji slid shut and he could still _feel_ her, standing bewildered outside his door.

Three breaths, and she moved on, leaving him alone with only his other for company.

The frosted grass glimmered like blades, no longer so beautiful, and Kenshin tried to forget what he had seen.

_Innocence corrupted._

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**The morning dawned hot and lazy, sunlight rolling over Tokyo like poured honey: slowly, stickily and with a languid sweetness enough to coat each breath with the taste of it. 

Kenshin stretched on the verandah, watching the dew steam on the lawn, and smiled at the panted curses of Yahiko, lapping the dojo in an attempt to escape Kaoru's lashing tongue.

_Kaoru_.

The battousai stirred.

_Her eyes are shadowed, and they should not be. Our little bird is hiding something._

Kenshin ignored his other and dressed, leaving to make breakfast, shoji sliding shut behind him with a click.

He did not want to think of his lack of protest at the imagery of Kaoru as a bird- small, delicate, yet with an anger enough to puff up her chest feathers and talons enough to break the skin. No, he did not want to consider the image, let alone its accuracy.

Especially not the idea of her belonging to him.

Tabi padding softly down the hall, he did not notice the needle wedged between two floorboards, upright and glistening coldly like the promise of violence.

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**Kaoru focused not on the bead of sweat trickling persuasively down her spine, but on the move she executed, bringing wooden sword down to clash with an imagined foe. 

She ignored her itching back, her aching feet, and thrust over a foot of wood into the belly of yet another shadow foe, twisting fast enough to stretch muscles half-asleep in the heat.

More sweat slid down her nose, landing on her bottom lip –thrust out with concentration- in salty droplets.

_The miso soup this morning was too salty, as though Kenshin had been distracted while adding seasoning. Which is strange, because Kenshin can cook with his eyes closed._

A parry, and the click of blade on blade rang in her mind as with a deft flick, another slash sent a shadow opponent flying.

_It's not like him to be absent-minded._

His eyes had been distant too, amethyst clouded with thought.

He hadn't looked her in the face through breakfast, not because of his rurouni shyness, but some other reason; something less pleasant than the sweet humility of a man unsure of his standing in her household.

A final swing down and she paused, balanced perfectly on toe and heel, muscles aching but mind distant from physical pain.

_Why did he stare at me like that last night?_

She'd gone to him, offering the last of the tea, still sweet, unlike her own brews which separated to bitter dregs when left undrunk.

His lantern was still on, and she knew he was mending clothes.

He hadn't seemed, to her, distracted- but then his eyes, free of anything but rurouni violet, had pierced her own.

Shocked. Distracted. Confused. Afraid?

Kaoru eased herself from her final stance, and shook the sweat from her limbs.

The hot air in the dojo was still, oppressive, and beat down on her like something physical.

She needed a rinse, a splash of water cold enough to shake her mind from the thoughts unlikely which gripped it.

_Kenshin? Afraid of me? Never._

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"If you didn't keep breaking bones, I would not need to mend them."

Sano ignored this timely advice, resolutely staring out of the open window cut into the wall. The day's heat was firmly settled in, like an unwanted visitor, and even the normally cool and composed woman whose lap his hand rested upon seemed flustered.

His eyes, unbidden, flicked back to her; noting that a droplet of moisture rolled steadily down the line of her neck, disappearing into the depths of shadowed cleavage that he knew her mint-green clothing hid.

"And stop squirming- how do you expect me to straighten these fingers if you keep moving?" he shrugged, and moved his eyes distant. Perhaps if he stared hard enough at the two men arguing about the price of tofu down the street, he would not think about the firmness of the thigh hot beneath his palm, kept from contact with his skin by only a layer of cloth.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Megumi's hair swing forward, damp with sweat, like a curtain of black Chinese silk.

And idle thought of tangling said silk in his hand occurred to him, and his fingers twitched.

_Would it feel as soft as it looks? Would it catch roughly on my palm?_

He suppressed it. Most likely, he'd just get thrown out of the clinic.

"And how is Ken-san?"

"Hm? Oh, Kenshin. Bit distant. Was acting funny at breakfast this morning."

"Funny?"

"You know, staring at jou-chan. Not full on, mind. Out of the corner of his eyes, as though he didn't want her to see."

A muffled pop, and one his fingers –dislocated since three nights before- crunched back into place a little roughly than was strictly necessary.

"Watch it, kitsune." he muttered, fingers twitching again, but in urgency to flee, not to tangle themselves in the black curtain that spilled down her back, although that was a most attractive idea...

She didn't apologise. He didn't expect her to.

"Perhaps he thinks of wandering again?"

He shrugged again, and earned himself a wrench of painful joints for moving.

"Maybe. Don't think so, though. I think he's worried about the girl. Who knows why," he added, at the questioning twist of her red mouth.

Her very red, very plump and most certainly very wet mouth. Why else would her lips, parted ever so slightly, glisten like cherry flesh?

He blinked again, as an idle thought not nearly as innocent as the others fluttered through his mind.

_No more sake for you, my friend. Just a cold dunk if your thoughts keep going the way they are._

"Hmm."

The wrench she gave to his smallest finger was most definitely more painful than necessary. Perhaps she could see what thoughts twisted in the depths of his sake-sodden mind.

That said, it didn't stop him crying out.

"Hey, I said watch it!"

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**

Soap sloshed across the floor in waves, bubbles soaking into the wood like water to sand.

Yahiko rocked back on his heels for a moment.

He didn't see the point of scrubbing the dojo in this weather- the moment he got a patch clean, it was damp with his own sweat.

Annoyed, he threw the brush at the bucket, where it disappeared with a satisfying _sploosh_.

Even the water was lukewarm, as though all the coolness had leached from the world with the evaporation of the morning's frost.

What he wouldn't give for some shaved ice, flavoured with fruit juice...

He refused to think that such a thing was Tsubame's specialty, and would certainly be accompanied by a smile warm enough to make his toes curl.

He needed less heat, not more.

He shifted again, peeling back the clothing stuck to him, which itched against his skin, already damp and clinging and it was barely the middle of the day.

Distantly, he could hear the clatter of wood as Kenshin slung clothes out to dry in the heat that rose in lazy spirals from the baked earth.

The wax was melting in its pot and utterly unusable- he'd just have to bear the lecture that was sure to come from Kaoru when she learned he neglected to wax the floorboards after cleaning them.

It was just too damn hot.

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Kaoru shook loose beads of water from her hair with a careless toss of her head. Even her ribbon drooped in this heat, and her kimono was already clinging for all that it was made of light summer cloth.

Kenshin, still in typical gi and hakama, folded washing baked dry into stiff heaps of fabric, red hair dark and damp.

Fetching water from the clay jug in the kitchen –mercifully cool in the shade- she had to wonder why he did not merely strip off as the men of Tokyo were prone to do in this weather.

Even Sano, for all that he loved his embroidered jacket, would shed it in this heat, leaving bandages damp with sweat to dry and stick fast to his skin.

She had put it down to modesty at first; her wanderer was shy in all things physical, as she had realised quite ruefully. He would not even spar with her, claiming such a thing as 'improper', but she had seen, in those rare moments when another man peered through his eyes, the face of a man content with his own strength, with the body he pushed to its limits, with the muscle that rippled beneath skin leathering from hard sun and harsh rain.

No, whatever kept Kenshin clothed in weather such as this was most certainly not mere modesty, but something else.

She sighed, wiping away the moisture that beaded on her forehead, even in the scant coolness of the shade.

_It was so cold last night, and now so warm. The weather Kami are playing tricks on us._

A large circle of sweat painted his pink –magenta, she could hear him insisting, magenta- gi crimson, and his hakama were grey and wet.

His hair snaked around him, twisted into knotted tendrils, but still awkwardly bunched at the back of his neck.

She eased herself down onto the wooden floorboards –cool as ice under her, although in reality a scant few degrees less than the sun that beat down- and watched his movements, still graceful, for all that the heat weighed him down.

"Kenshin? There's a cup here for you as well."

His head jerked up, startled, his eyes wide and violet. Had he been so lost in his task he hadn't noticed her silent scrutiny?

He was burning slightly in the heat; she could see the faint pink tint to his skin, colouring his nose and cheeks.

He wasn't blushing; when Kenshin blushed his cheeks glowed like lanterns.

"If you stay in the sun without putting any of the balm Megumi gave us on, you'll get burnt. Here."

She held both clay vessel and jar out to him, and was more than a little confused at his hesitation.

Those violet eyes had, for a moment, flickered; something amber and volatile rose in those purple depths, before melting like wax into flame.

He smiled, but she knew it was fake. He knew she knew, but neither dared voice this realisation. Some things were better left unsaid.

He took a breath –drawn perhaps to sharply- and gave a shaky smile before reaching for the clay vessel. His eyes were clouded, but she recognised the gesture for what it was: an apology, of sorts, for his indecision.

She accepted it, and relinquished her tight-fingered hold.

It was too hot for this strange awkwardness between them.

"Thank you, Kaoru-dono. And do not worry for this one's health- this one is tougher than he looks."

Kaoru blinked.

Even as he drew down water for a throat parched, his gaze –before clouded, now so clear- rested on her. His voice, normally so soft, had sounded harder, colder. Had his words been a warning, or a threat?

_Silly. Why would Kenshin threaten me?_

But then, even as he sighed and his eyes closed, momentary strain easing from his shoulders, even as his lashes fluttered open in embarrassed startlement as she smeared cold cream over his pink nose, a small part of her stayed wary.

She could not be sure if that voice and that warning had belonged to Kenshin or someone else.

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"Look, Ken-nii! It's a dragonfly!"

"A dwagonfly, a dwagonfly!"

Kenshin smiled, even as the girls tugged him from his cushion, pulling him into the wilting yard.

"See? It's sitting on the lantern! Oh, no, it's flying away!"

"Dwagonfly!"

Chittering quite happily, both Ayame and Suzume ran then, chubby hands outstretched and bright child's clothing glowing in the warm lights of paper lanterns that strung the trees. Behind him, their grandfather laughed.

"Will you look at those two go? Ah, but they love your garden, Kaoru-chan."

"It's not much of a garden, I'm afraid. It's wilting in this heat, and yet it was so cold last night."

The faint wisp of breeze was enough to carry Kaoru's voice on the warm air, scented heavily with dry grass and the perfumed candles in the lanterns, and he found himself searching for that sense of _other_ he had felt in her the night previous.

Her voice was a light and as high as ever, tinted only with the laughter of an older sister as the girls tumbled over the grass, hands still reaching for the elusive dragon-insect, which landed –to his surprise and the girl's delight- on his hair, translucent wings shimmering in the warm light.

"Oh, look ken-nii! It thinks you're a flower!

"Ken-nii's a flower! A flower!"

He couldn't help but smile.

"It does, doesn't it? Now be quiet girls and maybe we can catch it," he whispered, lowering himself to their height.

Ayame nodded, eyes round and serious, and Suzume clapped hands sticky with fruit juice over her grinning mouth, the butterflies embroidered on their twin kimonos stilling from flurried movement.

Gently, oh so gently, his fingers brushed over his hair, feeling the flutter of wings as thin as rice paper against his rough palms. The creature was oddly still in his hands, and did not resist as he drew it from the tangle of his hair –so disobedient in this hot weather- and rested, wings stirring in the faint breeze, in his cupped palms.

Both girls stilled, silent and eyes wide. To them, no doubt, this moment was special, sacred, and they received the offering of the dragonfly with the solemn gravity of a miko receiving incense.

"Be gentle girls."

Time had slowed, and some perfume –heavy and sweet- swirled around him as the creature was gently tipped into the waiting hands of Suzume, whose eyes flared wider then Kenshin could have expected, and whose lips trembled with the weight of hidden, excited, squeals.

"Lucky," whispered Ayame, but her tone held no pouting bitterness, only sheer wonder.

The dragonfly's wings beat once, twice, and then it flew, hovering briefly in the air above them, before zipping away into the night.

A beat of hushed, reverent silence feel over the girls, then passed.

"Wow! It was a dragonfly and you got to hold it Suzume!"

"Dwagonfly!"

Kenshin smiled. It was common agreement between the girls, their grandfather and Kaoru that such an amazing thing could not be beaten, and would not be for many years to come.

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"And Yahiko?"

"Oh, he's working a late shift at the Akabeko. Rather than walk home in the dark, Tae-san offered to let him stay for the night."

"Aa."

A pause grew out of the darkness, and was eased not at all by the faint clear light of the stars and sliver-moon.

All sound faded for Kenshin except the crunch of Kaoru's sandals on the gravel path leading to the dojo, empty as a shell.

Behind them, the gates –locked and closed now- rattled slightly, though the earlier breeze had died down, and the sigh of Kaoru's breath was the only movement in the otherwise still air.

Unbidden, the battousai stirred, as he was wont to do in quiet, dark moments.

_She will not look at us. Why is that? Why is our little bird so afraid to meet our eyes?_

This was true; Kaoru's gaze was at her feet, the dojo ahead, the stars above- anywhere but Kenshin.

_Perhaps, restless one, she is tired. Perhaps her head is simply too heavy to raise to meet our unworthy eyes, and all she thinks of is the softeness of her futon._

A warm shiver traced up Kenshin's neck, as though the breath of his other had ghosted there.

_Is that so, rurouni? I do not blame her. I think of the softeness of her futon also. Indeed, I do quite often..._

"Well, goodnight Kenshin."

Kenshin, drawn from his thoughts which were slowly easing towards the less than innocent, glanced up.

Kaoru's face was guarded, unsure, and it hurt to see her try to hide her emotions from him. Such was ineffectual- her eyes were as glass, transparent to the thoughts and desires that swirled in the blue of her eyes- blue that was this night dark and clouded.

Another thought shivered him as she turned away, not waiting for his response.

For a thing to be transparent did not only mean to be seen through; sometimes it meant one could not see it at all.

"Sleep well, Kaoru-dono."

The rattle of the shuttered shoji, and she was gone, leaving him to the dark of the yard, and his other's thoughts, stilled from the burlesque by his recognition and realisation that something was indeed hidden in her eyes- something unwanted.

_I wonder if our little bird even knows it is there?_

Kenshin hoped not; if so, her innocence -as dear to him as the pink-cheeked, sticky faced smiles of Ayame and Suzume- had been tainted willingly, perhaps wantonly.

A moment's anger bridled him then; Kaoru, _his_ little bird, was as pure as snow, as rain, as the heart of a miko; if he did not deserve to stain her, no one else did.

He sighed, and as water from a mountain's steep rocky walls flows, so too did his possessive nature roll away.

_She is not ours. We should remember that, restless one._

A ghost of a sigh whispered through Kenshin ear.

_So you say, rurouni. So you say. And I, chained as I am, cannot change that. Pity._

A light he hadn't noticed winked out, leaving him with nothing but stars and moon. His steps, normally consciously loud, faded into silence as the much repeated path to his room was once more retrod.

Another light flickered out, and darkness fell on the Kamiya dojo, lit not by the milky glow of stars nor moon.

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**End Part I**

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ENDNOTE:** this is a part dedicated to an establishment of scenario; an expansion of possibilities. Not much plot, as yet. 

I am slow to update, but can be tempted to work faster with bribes of beef noodles, ice cream and nachos. Not altogether at the same time, mind.

Reviews appreciated. Make my day: click the button.


	2. Peachhollow

**DISCLAIMER:** if I owned the Kenshingumi, there would be a lot more red-headed children running around calling out "Oro!" and hitting people with shinais.

**PREFACE:** more plot and some action. Again, set in neither the animeverse or the mangaverse, but somewhere in between. Some different POV's this time around.

A slightly longer part, which should keep people happy until I find time to write more...

Some more characters this time as well.

If any spelling or grammatical errors are found, please point them out; without an editor I may miss them.

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Something Wicked.

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Part II: Peach-hollow

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A weight hung over Tokyo, and the air was thick, heavy and faintly bitter to taste. 

No storm was forthcoming; no rupture and burst of clouds swollen with rain, no lightning to scorch the pressure from the atmosphere.

Just a sense of unease, echoed by the hesitant glances of mothers and police alike –whose eyes are ever watchful- resting on children and the masses that passed through the city gates.

At temples, incense was burned and offerings were made. Prayers were spoken in hushed, whispered tones, and those well-versed in arcana cast wards and spells.

Shop keepers, blind to the disturbances felt by those of a more metaphysical nature, but no less aware of the unseen tension, locked up early.

People panicked, but it was the scattered, vacant panic of a worried city, and aimed towards nothing in particular.

There was a sense of tension, of expectations unfilled; it was stretching, stretching- and soon it would snap.

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**

There had been a space in Kaoru's chest for a few days now, lodged within her heart like a hollowed peach: flesh sweet and juicy, but centre empty.

It tired her, made her body ache and her limbs heavy, and left an aftertaste, like cotton and the scent of burning air, warm on her tongue.

Her complexion was watered to milk pale, and her hair lost its lustre. Kenshin grew worried and called for Megumi, but nothing could be done, as nothing was, in fact, wrong. At least, not physically.

Just a sense of paradoxic weightlessness, of feathers burdened with the earths pull, yet striving to float.

She shifted underneath her covering, her futon far too warm to be laid upon this time of day, and yet she was forbidden from moving, confined to bed via clipped but well-meaning orders from the lady doctor.

Hoping to make the best of her situation, her eyes –so heavy- sighed closed, with the promise of sleep neither restful nor restless. Mere unconsciousness, and nothing more.

"Kaoru-dono?"

Kenshin slipped into her room the moment he felt her slide into sleep, and a small knot of tightness in his stomach eased at the peaceful expression on her face.

The single lock of dark hair he smoothed from her skin was slick with sweat, and caught on his calloused fingertips, a few strands snapping as he moved his hand.

Kaoru whimpered, eyes fluttering, but calmed as Kenshin laid a cool cloth on her forehead.

_If our little bird is dying, rurouni, I will hold you responsible._

Battousai's voice, even in his mind, was sharp and cruel.

_There is nothing either of us can do against sickness, restless one. And she will not die._

Leaving the room as quietly as he had entered, the faintest breath of a sigh fanned over the back of his neck, causing the skin there to tighten and prickle.

_You had better be right, rurouni._

There was a tiredness in him, and even his other's threats seemed half-hearted.

The shoji shut with a gentle click, and he paused, hoping he had not disturbing the girl sleeping so fitfully.

A moment passed, in which speculation on the nature of her sudden illness and the darkling shadows in her eyes ran rampant, before Kenshin left to find the lady doctor.

Although he had done all he could, all that she had recommended, he still felt helpless.

* * *

"How's jou-chan?" 

"Still asleep. She has a touch of fever, and she's still pale, but other than that..."

Kenshin's voice trailed off as his gaze settled on Yahiko, who was lapping the yard with a frantic, anxious speed; face scrunched into something resembling an urgency to forget.

Elbows pumping, sweat dripped from his hair and face to soak into the scorched ground, and his hakama flapped around his ankles as he ran, strides eating away at the laps he travelled.

"He's been running like that since you got back. I think he's scared for her."

"Most likely." Murmured Kenshin, mouth dry. Something hot and barbed tightened in his chest, and there was a lump in his throat, as though he'd swallowed a large rice ball without chewing, which was ridiculous, because he hadn't eaten for hours...

"Kenshin, you might wanna sit down. You look kinda drawn, like you've run from here to the Akabeko and back. It ain't gonna help if you get sick too."

"If this one did not know better, one would say you were worried, that one would," whispered Kenshin, sinking to the floorboards with knees he refused to let buckle.

Sano snorted, brown eyes narrowing into slits.

"Cut the humble crap. You only do that when jou-chan or the kitsune can hear. Admit it- you're afraid for her as well. I know I am," added Sano quietly, in a tone of voice hard to hear over Yahiko's insistent, pounding steps.

"Megumi-dono told us Kaoru-dono would be fine."

Even to his own ears, Kenshin's excuse sounded weak.

"Yeah, but she had that little crinkle in her brow that says she's not so sure. It ain't good when the doctor –especially a wonder-doc like Megumi- is worried."

Kenshin was silent.

There was, simply, nothing he could say to assure the younger man when all he had was tightness in his chest and a hollow, sick ache in his stomach.

_She cannot die. She cannot die. The gods cannot do this to us more than once, rurouni. We would not survive it._

Yahiko lapped them again; Kenshin seated with head bowed, and Sano with a tight-fisted grip on the dojo pillars. The boy's eyes were screwed shut, feet so accustomed to the path worn in gravel, dirt and grass that he moved through the motions of running laps without needing to look.

His cheeks were wet, and Kenshin would not consider the possibility that it was from moisture other than sweat.

"I sent a message to the Aoi-ya. One of my buddies was headed that way."

Kenshin nodded absently, mind still focused on the relentless pounding of Yahiko's feet onto pavement.

"Who knows, maybe a visit from that loud-mouthed brat will cheer her up."

"Maybe."

Silence stretched, grew heavy with heat and tension, and pressed down on them like the hand of a god: indifferent to their troubles.

Yahiko stopped running, clothes wet and breath choked with pants and what either man refused to recognise as sobs. He sat beneath the large tree in the yard, resting on the crisp grass with head between his knees.

Sano sighed.

"It's past noon. I gotta call into the clinic. You know, check up and all that."

His gaze, too heavy to meet Kenshin's, stayed low.

"Make sure he drinks some water before he starts running again."

Kenshin nodded, and didn't bother to bid Sano farewell as his presence faded. He sat, perched on the floorboards, and watched as Yahiko gulped down air in huge lungfuls, and spat it out in wretched, choked whimpers.

Unaware of the torment she caused, Kaoru slept.

_

* * *

She woke at nightfall, stirring from dreams that clung like smoke and whispered of things half-forgotten; of the scent of incense by her mother's grave, of her father's katana and the light that gleamed on an edge still sharp for all that it was notched. _

_Of secret things, best left in the past and of a smile, not hers; stolen and resting on another's mouth._

_Of white plum, of the essence of death and memory, and of morbid and twisting urges._

_Of creatures, clawing and burrowing into the depths of her, eating at her flesh with teeth that gave numbness not pain-_

"_Kaoru-dono?"_

_Kenshin's hand was cold and slightly damp against her forehead, and jolted her back, shivering, from that shadowed place where past and future blurred into real and unreal._

"_Kenshin?"_

_He smiled for her, but it was forced._

"_Megumi-dono gave this one some tea. You should drink it, that you should."_

_He helped her sit, steadying her with a hand that rested, almost shyly, on the curve of her back, his other bringing a cup to her lips._

_It was bitter, and made her cough, but he made sure she drank it all, down to the dregs, before washing the taste away with water. He laid her down again, kneeling beside her, eyes closed as the back of his hand, still cold and now wet, pressed against her forehead._

_Something trickled down her cheek, reached her dry lips and slipped past them, salty and cloying._

"_Kenshin?" her voice was husky, and heavy enough to scrape her throat._

_Her vision swam, but she focused enough to see he was bleeding, red splashes in a world monochrome and smeared._

"_Sleep, Kaoru, sleep. And do not wake."_

_His face was not his own, but something other, alien, eyes bleeding into blackness, flesh sloughing from his bones as something flared inside her, skin burning, acid on tongue and his hand, pressing her down into roaring dark, her mouth tearing chapped flesh to scream-_

She whimpered, clinging to the warm figure that knelt before her, shaking her, reaching and hiding herself in the open folds of fabric, cheek pressed against skin so wonderfully alive and a chest that rose and fell with the loud beat roaring in her ears like thunder.

His hands rested in her hair, stroking it smooth from tangles, and he crooned something, nonsense sounds whispered to soothe a child.

"Kaoru, shusha. Shusha, Kaoru, you are safe. Shusha, Kaoru, shusha; I am here."

It was some time before he managed to unclench her fists from his yakuta and ease her down to the futon, her eyes screwed shut against the shadows cast by his lantern and the footsteps that rang down the hall.

"Kenshin! What's happening? I heard screaming-"

"Just a night spirit, and nothing more, Yahiko. I would ask for the incense, though."

Kaoru trembled, not wanting to look and see his face, splattered with gore as he was eaten –d_evoured_- from the inside out...

She flinched when hands cupped her face, worn and calloused and real.

"Sleep, Kaoru, sleep. Sleep, my little bird, sleep; there are no night spirits here."

A wisp of incense smoke reached her, painted the air with scent and taste and leant sleepiness to her limbs. He drew her to him, resting her cheek against his chest, and his heart beat, calm and steady, pulsed in counterpoint to the blood roaring in her ears.

His hands fell to her hair, stroked it, fingers trailing like mist over her head and lulling her from terror into sweet repose.

Her fingers clutched at his sleeve, and her eyes fluttered open once, long enough to see the gilded violet that glowed as banked embers in the shadows of his face before sighing closed.

_A weight of some creature, heavy-hollow in her chest, stirred, stretching limbs like tangled wire._

_There were shadows enough and terror enough to feed from, but not enough weakness; this prey was too strong to succumb as yet._

_Not enough doubt, and although her form was strung with tension, she would not yet snap._

_Something curled tighter inside her, easing into the darkness behind her eyes. The space carved within her heart was not yet vacant enough to hide in._

_That, and her protector. But such as he could know nothing of this foe; he would, in surety, lose any battle fought._

_Still, the risk could not be taken. Let him succumb to his own shadows._

_Kaoru slept; so too did the beast._

* * *

"You must drink, Kaoru-dono. Even if only a little." 

Kaoru tried to please him, could not help but want to please those pleading eyes, bringing trembling hands cupped around a warm bowl to her lips; but the taste, bitter on her tongue, forced her throat closed.

Kenshin sighed, and took back the bowl.

Exhausted, Kaoru slumped back, almost falling but for his careful hands lowering her to the futon.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered, liquid eyes framed by thin bone and pale skin, "I can't."

"Shusha, little bird, it is all right. You tried, that you did."

The heat of his hand against her forehead was almost too much; Kaoru could feel the life that pulsed inside him, thrummed through his veins, and it threatened to overwhelm her.

She had to wonder why the same life did not pulse inside her; where there should be substance, there was just emptiness.

His eyes were violet and sorrowful; his mouth tight, painted with yet another false smile.

"Sleep, little bird, sleep. You will be better soon."

Kaoru did not believe him, but let her eyes close –they were too heavy to stay open for much longer- and slid, unresisting, into oblivion.

* * *

The battousai was trembling inside him, quivering with unspent violence, and Kenshin barely managed to leave her room before his other seared through him, boiling down his veins and twisting his hands to fists. 

He ran.

His other was, for all that he was skilled, for all of the hundreds that had died at his hands, still a child; barely a man, and possessor of no great control.

The battousai was a creature of emotions, of passion and despair, of anger; the darker side of his soul. Watching her fade before him, watching her life seep from her in sleep rather than crimson rivers... the tightness inside him, that ache he had long associated with knowing her and knowing he could not have her... so taut, so thin, so pressured.

His thoughts shattered, spiralled, splitting into fragments.

He recognised the feel of polished wood under his feet, the slipperiness of wax and cotton, and the world itself tilted as he span and fell.

He lay, crumpled, as the battousai's hands in his own clenched and shook, and an unvoiced scream rang through his ears, even as the echoes of pounding footsteps shook the floorboards and his thin frame.

There were words spoken to him, but he did not hear them; barely registering the flicker of movement as Yahiko ran for help.

He slept, and did not notice the blood pooling beneath his hands.

In his dreams, the battousai pleaded for mercy and wept, tears like pearls cupped in his hands and held up as offerings.

Even with such rich fare for a god, there was no answer.

_The beast, unseen, smiled._

_Her protector was surely lost..._

**

* * *

**

This was not a good quiet.

Sano had, in his few years of life on this land of the gods, found quiet in all its multitudes of form; tightened with suspense, heavy with sorrow, sweetened with sleep, breathless with release.

There had been sound; distilled and doled out in small doses- barely enough to muffle one's own heart, but all the sweeter for that it was little.

Here, there was merely the scrape of mortar and pestle, granite upon granite and creak of settling wood as the dojo cooled in evening shadows; uncomforting and certainly almost as bad as the quiet of a cell.

Occasionally, Megumi would sit back on her heels, loosen and retighten her apron, and once again pound away at stone with stone, crushing seed and herb into powder.

The monotony was not lost on him, and he found his hands clenching into fists with the rhythm of her tool and the pattern of his thoughts, which drifted as surely as dandelion wool would on the breeze that combed his hair with cool fingers.

He laid his palms flat, as though to still them, and ignored the fear in Yahiko's eyes.

He knew what it was to lose a mother, a father.

It ached once, and once was enough.

Twice, though...

His thoughts were broken, and understandably so, by the small blade that stung through the gate of the dojo and buried itself in the post which he leant against, and the flesh of his ear.

Thankfully, there was not much blood on the paper twisted around the handle, and the characters were clear enough to decipher.

_We're coming._

_-Misao_

**

* * *

**

Kenshin supposed he had bitten his tongue in his sleep. There were many nights where his dreams were not as silent as they should be, and many times he had woken to a jaw clenched achingly tight, and the ghost of blood in his mouth.

Now was much the same, except that the beams above him were not those of his room, but of Kaoru's.

Perhaps he had sleep walked?

"We figured it'd be easier to keep an eye on the both of you if you were in the same room. We –well, Megumi and Sano- figured you'd protest so we moved you while you were... uh, asleep."

With the long practice of someone who has reached consciousness whilst still wounded many, many times before, Kenshin rolled his head over his pillow to focus bleary eyes on Yahiko.

He tried to focus on the boys hands, twisting in the ties of his hakama, like nervous pink spiders, but had the disconcerting feeling there were three sets of each.

He closed his eyes, and licked his lips, hoping to prise his dried flesh apart enough to speak.

"Kaoru-dono?"

The words were croaked, and it unsettled him. They had sounded far too familiar to the last expulsion of breath given by a body, and a thought, heavy and slow, settled into the fore front of his mind.

_My last words will be her name._

"She's having a bath. Megumi said to make you drink this if- _when_ you woke up. Um. Here, let me..."

The boy seemed disturbed at how easily he was able to lean him forward, and somewhat surprised at the lightness of him- obviously, he'd been expecting a greater strain on his young arms.

His thoughts wandered beyond the press of clay against his mouth, and the bitter, twisting liquid that forced its way down his closed throat.

There was nothing but quietness in the part of him he knew as battousai; an absence of presence that bothered him, and left him shaken and empty.

_Restless one?_

Silence.

_Battousai?_

It was ironic that his prayers for peace in his own mind had been answered now- surely, the gods possessed humour.

* * *

Sano twisted his fishbone between his fingers, flipping it sharp end over blunt, smoothing the worn bone between his palms. 

The current of his thoughts was slow, deliberate- the bone between his fingers that glinted in intermittent bursts as it turned was a focus, a means of separating his conscious from the unconscious, smelting truth from dross.

Sagara Sanosuke knew he could not be considered an overly intelligent man; his strengths were physical, never mental and certainly not spiritual.

He also knew that a crisis was breaking on the Kamiya Dojo; there was a subtle wrongness here, like loose threads in a tightly woven tapestry, which seemed to weigh down its occupants.

In crisis's past, Kenshin had solved them through intuition and an intellect hidden behind the rurouni mask.

Unfortunately, his thread was one of the loose ones, and so the task of solving the problem fell to Sano, who was, in his own opinion, unsuited to his given role.

His eyes closed, and the trickle of his superficial thoughts dawdled to a stop. Mind blank of everything but the most essential facts, he leant back against a sun-warmed pillar and sought tranquillity.

As a monk had once told him, the gods themselves spoke to a man within the quiet of his mind, and one could find answers there, if only one listened hard enough...

_Sshh-ink._

The blade between two of the fingers of his right hand was hot with stilled speed, and sharp enough that a single drop of life-giving fluid slid slowly down the pad of his first finger.

Blinking in shock to find figures standing on the gate itself, rather than beyond it, he would later give credit to his trance for being able to catch the kunai that had shot towards his closed eyes with deadly accuracy.

"I did say we were coming."

Angrily, he surged to his feet, unfolding long, muscled limbs, and would have spoken, were it not for the sharp, painful scream that came from the direction of the bathhouse.

* * *

Kaoru was not herself. 

There could be no other explanation for the blood that slicked her throat, splattered the bathhouse floor and coated her yakuta with dark wetness.

Megumi screamed again, high and loud, ran and slid on wet wood to land in the bathtub, water sloshing in foaming pink waves onto the grated floor.

Kaoru's eyes rolled back to expose whiteness as smooth as marble as fingernails bitten to the quick scratched at her throat, gouging her skin in fat red lines.

The keening noise that trickled between her pale, chapped lips warped into a snarl as three kunai whipped through the open door, pinning both her sleeves to the wall and thudding home next to her left ear.

Mindless, she thrashed hard enough to tear at her robe's thin seams, baring her teeth in frustration.

Megumi shivered, drenched in cold, bloody water as a shadow streaked through the bathhouse, slid over the slippery floor with deadly grace, and slammed two fingers into either side of Kaoru's neck, ignoring the teeth that snapped closed on cloth.

The girl slumped, head lolling bonelessly.

Aoshi stood, jerking the torn cloth of his arm away from Kaoru's teeth, and flowed easily from a stance of attack into one of relaxed alertness.

Behind him, Misao sighed, and stepped forward from his shadow to help the startled young doctor out of the bathtub.

"I want to know what's going on, and I think you'd better start from the beginning."

**

* * *

**

Kenshin had tried to get out of bed the moment he heard a woman scream, and would have succeeded but for the fact the blood in his veins was strangely thick and sluggish, much like molten lead, and Yahiko's hand pushing him back down.

As it was, he could only lie and wait and listen to the _clack_ of wood and the faint noise of people walking up the hall.

He would've said something when, shockingly, Misao slid open the door, but for the fact that his world had narrowed to the woman carried in her companion's arms.

Yahiko rose to intercept, but stopped, backing away nervously.

Kenshin's impression of time slowed, treacle-thick, leaving him with the roar of blood in his ears and the dull pounding in his chest but no ability to shape his mouth around the sounds of her name, as dear to him as it was...

He'd expected to feel anger, rage, _something_ other than the emptiness that churned inside him as Aoshi laid her down, touching body to futon with surprising gentleness; unhappily, he could not, and wondered at the void inside him.

His breathing, harsh and ragged, ceased altogether; his heart shuddered twice before beating again, faster than before.

"Wh..." The first syllable of the word whispered past his lips and hung in the air, waiting.

"She attacked herself. Megumi-san witnessed it, and we had no choice but to stop her. She wasn't herself, Himura. There was someone else looking out of her eyes..." Misao shivered and made a motion as though to rub her arms, but stopped. "There's something wrong with her. She's not just sick, she's..."

Again the girl stopped, arms crossed and defensive in the corner of the room, unable to voice the word that pressed against her closed lips.

Aoshi stood, graceful and managing to convey both concern and disapproval in that simple movement as his gaze, sharp and far, far too perceptive for Kenshin's comfort, rested upon him.

"If you knew she was in this state-"

"I thought her ill. That was all." His words, perhaps a little too fast, perhaps a little too harsh.

Aoshi did nothing so crass as to narrow his eyes; it was enough that his expression, bare of emotion as it was, sharpened slightly.

_A lie. And you know it._

"Takani-san suggested she be left to sleep. She also...recommended... that you come out for some fresh air. The boy is to accompany you, and to give you assistance if you require it."

"I won't."

_Another lie. You are hiding something. I will know what it is._

"Very well. We await your presence."

Misao shot him a reproachful gaze, but followed out of the room all the same, leaving Kenshin to his thoughts, and the fear that shook Yahiko's trembling frame.

"Kenshin...? Is Kaoru gonna be okay?"

"Yes. She will be fine, Yahiko, that she will."

"Okay. Um. Can you sit up, or..."

Yahiko stopped. There was no point in talking to a man who was unaware of anything but the white bandages that slid over Kaoru's neck, rust-stained and slipping down past the neckline of her yakuta, which was loose enough to expose the slightest curve of a pale breast.

Kenshin shivered.

"I can stand, Yahiko. I will not need to lean on you."

Yahiko had his doubts, but did not voice them. Kenshin stood, and there was a sound like old wood creaking under a heavy weight.

It took Yahiko a while to realise it was Kenshin's bones.

"We should not keep them waiting," he murmured, refusing to allow his gaze to linger any longer on Kaoru's still, bloodied form.

_

* * *

Kaoru dreamt of disquieting things; of monsters, of beasts, of puppets with strings. _

_Of spiders, crawling over her and through her, and of wire binding her wrists to stakes, each buried in dark loam caked with liquids thankfully unrecognisable._

_In her dream, the moon was sickle-thin and cast no light; the stars glittered malevolently above her._

_The air was chased by smoke, cloying and dry, but not sweet; the wind was burning, burning, dusting her with embers as she stood, alone in some strange field littered with stones, markers..._

_Graves. Dozens of them, spreading out beyond her, past the single largest stone._

_A bowl of sake shimmered as an offering, and against it leant a single, smouldering incense stick, from which sparks fell, and set the liquid ablaze..._

_Presently, she tried to tug her wrists free, and there was pain as wire bit into her skin, leaving dark, bruised smudges; ashes smeared across snow._

_From the corner of her eye, the sky glowed red, the ground beneath her black; this world different from her own._

_She shivered. Her clothes –strangely similar to the kimono she possessed as a child- rustled lightly, completely masking the footsteps of the man behind her. She would have been surprised, but for the syrupy air which choked her, barely giving her space to breathe, let alone react._

_His fingers on her wrist, and the wire loosened._

_His hands closed about hers, gentle but still firm enough to tug her to face him. Unheeded, the stakes that had bound her clattered to the ground._

_She could not see him clearly, although he stood but a hand-span in front of her, his breath ghosting over her and sending ripples of something –not fear, but still apprehensive- over her skin, puckering it in waves of goosebumps._

_There was an impression of red to the shadow of his hair, piled high to flow down his back; a glisten of white from his parted lips; a spark of amber from slitted eyes._

_On his darkened cheek, a double-scarred cross burned like pain, like blood, like an offering set afire by hot incense smoke._

"_Hello, little bird," said Battousai, and it was a name, not a description._

"_I did not think to find you here. Clearly, you and I are both prisoners of this nightmarish scene."_

_He smiled, and his teeth were very white in the blackness of his face; her indistinct impressions of colours shifting and blurring into nothingness, leaving him an outline and an outline only._

"_We are alone here; not even the other one could find us, even if he thought to try."_

_The smile vanished, only to return a moment later as he leaned forward to brush lips across her forehead in a strange caress that left her feeling dizzy and branded._

"_I think, little bird, we should try to find our own way from here, and away from those cursed stones."_

_Kaoru nodded –it was all she could to do- and let him lead her into the forest that reared most suddenly against the scarlet sky._

_Behind them, unnoticed, the beast followed._

**

* * *

**

**End Part II**

**

* * *

END NOTE:** my apologies for the cliff-hanger, and the morbid tone which seems to be suffusing this. 

My mind has been distracted of late, and whatever mood I am in when I manage to write is usually prevalent.

Some dreaming, and a few suggestions of gore, but hopefully not enough to make me raise the rating.

Again, reviews are welcome and appreciated; as are comments, critiques and et cetera.

Bribe of choice to continue writing: dark chocolate and iced tea.


	3. Half a man, and Her hollow shell

**DISCLAIMER:** if I owned the Kenshingumi, there would be a lot more red-headed children running around calling out "Oro!" and hitting people with shinais.

**PREFACE: **Almost finished now, so bear with me. Things may get a little confusing here- they are meant to.

As in-character as possible, and featuring a cameo location from Kenshin's youth.

Un-beta'd, but edited as best I could, despite my computer insisting Aoshi's surname is, in fact, Shimmery.

**

* * *

**

**Something Wicked.**

* * *

**Part II: Half a man, and Her hollow shell**

* * *

There was no space to breathe, not now, not here; the air was treacle-thick and clung like sweat to dry skin. 

People scratched at bites that were not there, and through layers of cloth, no less- skin crawling with the sensation of pinpricks through silk and cotton.

Children cried for no reason at all, and clung to their father's legs- refusing to be soothed by kindness or the tender touch of a mother's hand.

Businessmen, whose deals were often less than honourable, shied from offers too good to refuse, and when asked why, would only murmur "It does not feel right."

Temple gates were thrown open, paths lined with salt and incense in preparation for some unseen catastrophe; monks chanted prayers well into the night.

Tokyo breathed in, preparing for the onslaught.

**

* * *

**The afternoon glimmered as dull as brass in Kenshin's eyes, leaving his gaze both pained and hollow. 

It was obvious to all seated before him that the rurouni was not himself; Aoshi, uncharacteristically bluntly, stated so.

Kenshin shuddered, teeth clicking together. A bead of sweat shivered past his lips, dropped off his skin and onto cloth. It rested for a moment, before melting away into his yakuta, as though it had never been there.

"Himura?"

Misao, petite and incensed, nethertheless managed to keep a civil tongue, of which his name was produced in short, stunted syllables.

"What is going on?"

His head was heavy. Very, very heavy- his stomach empty in contrast. It was, quite frankly, a surprise to him he did not overbalance and tip, cracking skull to floor and oozing out its contents.

He felt like an eggshell; fragile and too full, and though he wanted to, he could not speak to answer her.

The dead had stolen his tongue.

Not literally, of course- there was still the weighty lump of flesh pressing against his teeth, but his gift of speech had quite fled him. Perhaps his other held it now, wherever he was.

_Restless one?_

_The gods do not care for men who lie._

A voice, in his head. A voice that was not his voice. Not his others. Not his. Not of those around him, but from the darkness behind his eyes.

_Men who __**lie. **__The gods do not care for._

The words, jumbled now, repeated themselves over and over. He made an effort to regain his senses; tried to focus on the questions spilling from Misao's small mouth, but heard none of them, and could not see anything but blurring shadows and the startled movement of Aoshi, who jolted forward to snag a handful of cloth before body met gravel below the verandah-

_-gods __**do not care**__ for _

–_**lies**_

–_of __**men**_

_The beast was satisfied._

_This threat was gone._

**

* * *

**

_She had meant to ask whether she was dead, but hadn't been able to form more than the intention to speak. The words, though eager, stilled themselves at her lips and refused to move past them._

"_While you are here, you cannot speak, little bird."_

_Battousai smiled at her again, turning to face her, white teeth in the dark._

"_There are no words for the living in this dead place."_

_She tried to shiver, felt she should shiver, but that too was beyond her._

"_Don't fret. I do know where we are headed, even if you do not."_

_She tugged on the hand whose fingers twisted through hers, hot on her cool, cool skin. He didn't stop._

"_We're going to see someone. He might be able to help you."_

_A chuckle, and the scrape of a branch against her cheek as he pulled her, against all reason, through a tree._

"_Of course, that's only if he can help himself."_

_Battousai laughed again, and to her, the sound tasted bitter._

**

* * *

**

"If he is not dead, Takani-san, he will be shortly."

Megumi did not jump; her hands rested about a man's throat and to move would be to choke him. A slow pulse fluttered beneath her palms, some strange insect caught in the cage of her hands, but too weak to fly and free itself.

"You are not helping," she hissed, entirely aware she was far too frightened of the tall man standing, with deceptive nonchalance, in the corner of the room.

"It is not my intention to. I am merely stating the fact of the matter: You cannot save him."

His eyes were closed; his lashes did not move, and his chest rose and fell with discouraging slowness.

Red hair, dull and tangled, slid through her trembling fingers as she stroked it back from an impassive, still face.

Aoshi continued to speak.

"If a man does not want to live, you cannot force him to, Takani-san. Perhaps he sees himself and Kamiya-san united in death, as never they were in life-"

"_Shut up, you smug, vicious bastard! Go and kill something for all I care, but leave me alone!"_

The words could not have possibly been hers, for Megumi herself knew she was far too cultured, civilised and self-controlled to resort to such brutal words in a burst of tears, yet the words had come from her lips and it was her tears she tasted on her tongue.

Unfazed, Aoshi spoke once more, and left the room.

His words made no sense, not at first; her grief and pain and anger was far too great to be abated by such a mere question, and a nonsensical one at that, but as his message sank in, slowly, through layers of hurt and disbelief, she understood.

_There is no such thing as half a man, Megumi. He is either a man, or he is dead. Now tell me, which is Himura Battousai?_

Megumi shuddered.

There was a duality in all things, but never more so than in the body of the man that lay before her...

An idea, untried, untested, but perhaps her only option formed. For a moment, she dared not contemplate it; to do so would be to test the patience of those spirits by whose grace she still drew breath on this mortal earth.

But what choice did she have?

"Sanosuke, get in here! Someone draw a bath- I know what to do! I know how we can help them!"

**

* * *

**

If the living cannot speak here, then surely Kenshin is...

_Even as a little more than a thought, Kaoru refused to believe it._

_The sky was darker, now; if time passed in such a place as this, then surely it moved towards nightfall. Very soon, it seemed to her, she would walk in a dark world; black sky, black earth, with the man who led her little more than a shadow among shadows._

_Her hand tightened around Battousai's. She thought she heard him chuckle._

"_Don't fret, little bird. You are quite safe with me. Unlike the man we go to see, I would not hesitate to destroy anything in our path should it threaten you."_

Who could we see in a place like this? There is no one here but us...

_The warmth in Battousai's voice trickled away, as water through sand, leaving only the quiet chill of melancholia._

"_If the fool manages to appear. If. Perhaps, if the Okashira has an understanding of the situation the others do not, but even he, for all his knowledge of the spirit world, is just a man..."_

_His soft, half-heard words made no sense to Kaoru, knowing as she did the Okashira of the Kyoto Oniwanbanshuu was Misao, but she had little time to contemplate them as the ground beneath her feet –if it could be termed such- grew damp and oozing._

_There was a roar as of a distant river, and water sloshed around her ankles, quite soaking her sandals and tabi._

"_Ah. So he does understand. I was not wrong to hope."_

_His words made no sense, but that was the least of her problems as Battousai's hand in hers grew slippery, insubstantial; her fingers slid through his as though through incense smoke. Soon, it seemed, there would be no hand to hold at all._

_Battousai laughed, and the sound was a snarl._

"_Soon, beast, you will see why your tricks cannot hold the Demon of Kyoto!"_

_The misty fingers she could not hold lunged for her, grasped her and did not pass through her, spinning her to face a figure only half-seen in shadows of the man she knew._

_Here, Battousai was unchained- quite free to do as he wished without his other's interference, now without such trifles as the rurouni's morals to bother him._

"_I would say 'forgive me', little bird, except I have no regrets whatsoever about taking advantage of this situation."_

_He jerked her forward, and then she was quite unaware of anything but her knees buckling and wet as a smoky mouth scorched her, drank her in and left her empty in his arms._

_The water was rising; waves sloshed against the trees around them, before them, behind them._

_Even up to his shins in water, he burned; every inch pressed against her through cloth felt as though no cloth was there at all; she could not cling to him, her arms limp by her sides, but those ghostly hands could most certainly cling to her-_

_And then the hot, hazy pressure of that mouth was gone, the water rising, rising over her head, bubbles flashing before her eyes, and though there was no air to breathe in this strange place, mouthfuls of it rushed from her chest in streams that glimmered against dark water like pearls on velvet-_

_And then another's arms, around her, pulling her up, dragging them both to the surface far above them-_

_Kaoru staggered out onto the rocky sand of a small pool, a waterfall hissing in her ears, and collapsed._

_Her eyes closed, for how long she wasn't sure._

_When they opened, violet was looking back at her._

"_Kaoru-dono? Where are we?"_

**

* * *

**

Shinomori Aoshi, one-time Okashira and now more of a spiritual man than he ever believed he could become, bunched one hand around a handful of wet cloth that covered a still chest, nodded to the man holding the legs of the submerged body, placed two fingers on a still throat, and, when the faintest flutter was felt, yanked Himura Kenshin out of the water.

Sodden cloth and dripping hair puddled around the body dumped unceremoniously on the wooden floor; water ran off him in rivulets, and the man coughed, vomiting up more water than should ever be in human lungs.

Gold flashed through tangled masses of red, and a scar stood out in stark relief on skin pale as any corpse.

Sanosuke swore.

Blood, watered and pink, slid down a bone-white cheek.

Battousai sat up. And grinned.

"Hello, Aoshi. Four dead men tell me you were never so cruel-hearted when you were younger, even in the chaos of the Bakamatsu."

Aoshi ignored him. By the door, Yahiko shuddered.

"Sano? What's going on-?"

"The figure you see before you, Myojin, is not Himura Kenshin. This is the Demon of Kyoto, the man in whose hands Kamiya-san's fate rests. After all, it takes a beast to catch a beast."

Battousai laughed, and the sound was rough and raw; the sound of a man who has nothing to lose.

Megumi, shaking as a paper lantern in a strong breeze, clutched onto Sano's arm, whispering prayers kept from a childhood best forgotten.

Misao, eyes like chips of green-stained bronze, stepped forward. Her young face, not nearly as young and carefree as it once was, was hard, delicate jaw clenched.

"So, you were dead."

"Only for a little while, itachi-jou. Heh. I was alive before you were born, and I'll most certainly still be after you die, regardless of what my other thinks. What a mess he has landed us in this time. And now, you will take me to where you are keeping my little bird."

**

* * *

**

The body of Kamiya Kaoru had been forcibly restrained, and was still for the most part, aside from the shuddering twitches that passed over her from time to time.

Blank eyes rolled back in a pale face as Battousai watched teeth sink into a bottom lip torn bloody.

"We tried gagging her, but she started to choke. We didn't know what else to do."

Slender wrists, lashed and bound, strained in intermittent fits. Nails cracked and chipped scratched bloody gouges into delicate hands, straining for the ropes wrapped about her and secured with sharp steel driven into stained, scored floorboards.

"Aoshi wanted to blindfold her. I wouldn't let him."

"Mm. Perhaps you should've. However, it does help my task a little..."

_The beast thrashed. Damn that blood-soaked shadow!_

_The ties that bind it are too strong for this vessel to break. The convenience of a tool does not matter if the tool itself is useless!_

_The beast paused._

_A dead man drew near._

Battousai, aware of Misao's startled gasp but ignoring it, straddled the body of Kamiya Kaoru, perching himself on bucking hips that stilled beneath him.

"I know you're in there. Don't think I don't," whispered Battousai, in words almost too soft for the ninja in the doorway to hear.

"You're inside my little bird, and you shouldn't be. Once I find out what you are, and how to kill you, you'll be gone. Understood?"

A head jerked forward and once-blue eyes, reduced to slits of darkness in bloodshot orbs focused on the figure nose-to-nose with them.

Bloody lips twisted into a smirk.

"_Try, human. Try. Her shell is mine, and she has already gone into the dead world. In a few more mortal days, she will not be able to come back..."_

Battousai felt the words shudder through Kaoru's body, and stood abruptly, the body beneath him thrashing as the beast laughed with a rumble that shook the dojo, showering dust and wood chips on them all.

Misao fell back as a roof beam, and part of the corresponding roof, shattered and crashed down.

Her shout for help was barely heard over the beast's shrieking laughter, and Battousai thrust pointed fingers into the abdomen of an absent Kamiya Kaoru, causing her body to jerk forward, vomit bloody foam and grow still.

Dust settled, and Misao wiped blood from scratched legs, wobbling on an unsteady ankle. An arm snaked under hers to steady her, and Sano hefted the beam blocking the doorway aside.

"I did not think you could hurt Kamiya-san, Battousai. Perhaps I was mistaken in calling you back."

His face was impassive, as though entirely unconcerned with the injured woman tucked under a lean, dark-clothed arm.

Battousai grinned. It was not a happy expression. Eyes flashed gold through the clouds of dust that had only started to fade out through open shutters.

"This isn't her, Aoshi. Just her body. My little bird is flown far away from here."

_And if we do not hurry, she will not come back._

**

* * *

**

"_This place..." whispered Kenshin, turning to see the waterfall that crashed down behind them, "It should not be here..."_

_Kaoru, confused but unable to ask questions, found herself seated on a rock as Kenshin paced before her. Her kimono had been dry as soon as she had left the water, and it was this, above all, that hammered home the truth she was not in any world she had ever known._

_A bone-and-grey moon hung like a sickle above them, curved into a malevolent grin._

_Kenshin paced, hair flashing burnt umber as he stalked through shadows, light where Battousai had been dark._

_She could see him quite clearly, could see every detail of that beloved face, and most pointedly so the concern in eyes that would flick to her, flick away and flick back again, as though his gaze could not bear not to rest on her._

_A wishful thought, that._

_But a thought and hers, and unable to be voiced in this thrice-cursed place, no matter how much she wanted to speak, to say his name, to ask for help he had given, so willingly, so many times before-_

_Kaoru was quite surprised to find she could indeed cry here, and even more surprised that the tears should come now; after days and nights of wearying, bone-crushing fear it was something of a shock that the tears -provoked by an inability to speak, only that- would stream now, hot, down her cheeks in this place so cold._

_Kenshin moved. Even dead, he was faster than any living man, and her silent whimpers were enough to drive him to his knees before her, trembling, sword-calloused hands to stroke her cheek._

"_Please, Kaoru-dono, do not cry; please. I will find us a way home, that I will. But please, little bird, don't cry; I can't stand it."_

_The last words whispered and raw, and enough to startle her tears from her._

_Below her, on his knees, looking up, trembling with the weight of something unsaid and unbearable and only half realised, his hands slid down to find hers._

_She sighed, and it was soundless, sliding forward to rest her forehead against his._

_His eyes closed, then hers. Gently._

_His plea a catalyst._

_Inexorable, in this world, theirs or any other; not time, nor gods, nor anything known or unknown to man stop this moment._

_Slowly, inevitably, with the gravid weight of the past and the future pressing on them both, their lips met. Softly._

_Her tears stopped._

**

* * *

**

A ball, formed of stiff, coloured leather and stuffed with rags, tumbled across lawn burnt to a starched crisp. The giggles of young children blunted the edges of the weight that hung over the Kamiya dojo, bringing a smile to the lips and a moment's forgetfulness to those who dwelt there.

"How's your ankle?"

"The better for you asking after it."

Sarcasm was a new thing to Misao, but she nevertheless managed to carry it off, young face set in an expression Yahiko had never seen before, or at the very least, not to this degree and by such a young girl.

Ayame giggled, and called for her sister to pass her the ball. The sound seemed high and fluting, and quite out of place, given the situation they found themselves in.

He didn't want to believe the man seated on the verandah watching the girls play with yellow eyes was not Kenshin, or not the Kenshin he knew; however, it was too easy to see the differences between them in bearing, let alone appearance.

Battousai wore Kenshin's body like a glove, as though it were tailored to fit him and only him. Yahiko had to admit he saw none of the rurouni's buffoonish awkwardness in the man; Battousai moved with the lean perfection of someone entirely comfortable in their skin.

For some reason, it bothered him.

A question, one that had bothered him since watching Aoshi and Sano drown the man, hold him down, even as his unconscious body thrashed –the former blandly expressionless, the latter with grim resolve, and he with stomach-twisting fear that this so risky gamble could go so incredibly, terribly wrong- bubbled up and burst, quite unbidden, from him.

"How did you know it would work?"

"We didn't. Megumi-san had heard of it, and Aoshi believed it would work. I trusted him. I am not sure if that was a mistake..."

The last was whispered, only half-heard and made him shiver.

In a world where Misao, of all people, did not trust Aoshi, there was something terribly wrong.

Suzume shrieked with laughter, ball rolling into flowers that had sprouted beneath the trees, sending butterflies and moths winging into the sky.

Distantly, a kite wheeled above them, a shadow-speck in sky a washed-out blue.

Ayame called for the ball again, fumbled and dropped it, to roll on grass, giggling.

"My ball, Ayame, my ball!"

Battousai, lounging against a pillar across the yard, stiffened into a disturbingly feline crouch.

The kite, not so distant now, called out with a shrill and mournful air. The hairs on Yahiko's arms prickled, and Misao sought to stand, balancing awkward on a splinted ankle and crutch.

The dojo stilled, and the squeals of the girls became unreal and disorientating to the ear.

The ball, brightly coloured and rolling gently, trailed by children who, from a distance, might seem like hares tumbling through brush became the center of attention.

The kite shrieked again, and the sound was distant again, and time flowed as steadily as before, quickening from that moment of dread where all could see small bodies, pierced by sharp, indifferent talons and bright kimonos stained with blood.

A sparrow chirped, and swooped on a grasshopper, perching itself on a tree branch to tear insect limb from limb.

Misao shuddered.

"I need to soak my ankle. Megumi-san said she'd call when dinner was ready."

The clatter of her crutch against still-unwaxed floorboards faded, leaving Yahiko to an amber gaze and a disconcerting air.

"I think I'll go help Megumi in the kitchen."

The words were said aloud, but there was no reply, and whether anyone heard them was an entirely different question.

Battousai watched him leave. In the yard, the girls called for their Yahiko-nii-san to come play. He ignored them, and fought the urge to run.

**

* * *

**

_There were no insects in this dark world, no night-birds, nothing but the quiet hiss of the stream they camped beside to detract from the silence that swallowed them into its gaping maw._

_Kenshin had lit a fire, from dried sticks scrounged from dark earth and chips of dry stone from the pebbled banks._

_It did not help; the light it cast was too weak to dent the shadows, only enough to lend them disquieting shapes and flickering edges._

_Kaoru tried not to look behind her._

_That, too, did not help._

_Neither did closing her eyes; she only found more darkness there, and it was too thick and pervasive to hide from._

"_Kaoru-dono? You will be cold there. Please, come closer to the fire."_

_Kenshin was nervous now, she could tell; their moment had passed, and after his stuttered apologies, left them with no walls to hide behind, each laid bare to the others thoughts._

_It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was not supposed to regret it, nor be as scared as she was of the growing, creeping shadows of the forest around them._

_Something hot, like anger, like foolish courage, pooled in her belly. She sat straighter, forced her trembling hands to fist._

_She was not so weak as to need him to protect her. She was a Kamiya! She had faced down a murderer, broken from the hold of crazed and dangerous men, and dealt with as many demons Kenshin's past had to offer._

_She would not, _could not_ end in a place like this!_

_Across from her, Kenshin's bowed head jerked upright. He could feel her spirit, once embers, once banked and trembling between extinction and muted, colourless life flicker and scorch into bright, burning soul again._

_It bathed him, warmed him far more than their small fire –or a vulcan blaze- ever could._

_Something inside he knew was missing, was gone from him, resonated with the promise of that bright, clean, _vengeful_ spirit._

_Unwillingly, he smiled._

"_Kaoru-dono?"_

"_Get up, Kenshin. And start walking. We're going to find a way home."_

**

* * *

**

In this world, her body stilled. There was no last, frantic movement, nor a dramatic rolling of eyes. She did not slump, did not collapse into the hold of the creature that stood between her and life. Her body merely paused between one breath and another, and drew no further breath.

In the half-light of the few candles, flickering shadows gave the brief impression she still lived, but only until one looked closely.

And when he did, Sano's shout shook the shoji.

"Her pulse has stopped. She does not breathe, and her skin is cool. I have checked her three times, Yahiko. She's gone." Megumi closed her eyes. The words, weighty, had been reluctant to be spoken, and had cost her dearly.

"You were wrong last time," snapped Yahiko, his words thrown with impact enough to bruise pride and feelings. "She was alive then, and no one knew it. Not till it was too late and Kenshin had run away. What if you're wrong now?"

"Kid, she's gone. Jou-chan... _Kaoru_ ain't there no more. Kami. Somebody should go get Gensai."

Misao leant against a corner wall and watched the denial and acceptance war over the three faces that Kaoru knew best.

A brief wish that she was a child again, and could curl into her Aoshi-sama's arms if scared or sad flashed through her; she pushed it away and limped from the room.

Someone had to tell Battousai, even if she suspected he already knew.

She blinked, and the walls of the dojo blurred beneath wetness. She refused to cry; Makimachi Misao, Okashira of the Legendary Kyoto Oniwanbanshuu did _not_ cry.

Even so, her cheeks were damp.

_Himura'd be in his room, now. He left after dinner, and no one's seen him come out of there, so he's probably asleep or something._

Never mind the fact that Sano's roar had caused lanterns in neighbouring households to be relit and cast yellow shadows in shuttered windows; never mind that Kenshin, let alone the wild, unchained soul that held his body now, had always been uncannily aware of Kaoru; he didn't know, and she had to tell him.

She stumbled on unsteady feet.

Sharp, blistering pain swelled up her leg, and she whimpered. Her crutch slipped from nerveless fingers to clatter against the wooden floor. Her lantern dropped, and snuffed out with a crunch of paper and wood.

Tears blinded her, and she fell forward.

She was caught, and cradled in silent arms that offered no platitudes, no nonsense on how her spirit was too bright for this world, and that her friend was in a better place-

Just comfort, and solid reassurance, and a steady, unchanging heartbeat that promised life in a house that all too suddenly shuddered with death.

A long moment passed, and she could hear Yahiko's choking, shuddering denials, the held-back sobs in Sagara's voice, and the quiet, resigned silence of Megumi-san.

The arms about her shifted; she felt herself lifted up and resting against a broad shoulder.

Reminiscence, a thousand memories of being carried to bed as a child in these same arms, prodded her and demanded acknowledgement.

She ignored them.

She did not attempt to protest that she could walk; her crutch was somewhere in the dark hallway, slick with spilt oil from her dropped lantern, and her ankle twinged at the thought.

She dozed, and found herself in the guestroom, wrapped in a thin, summer quilt.

"Go back to sleep, Misao. None of us will sleep much these next few days; I suggest you rest while you can."

Even now, she couldn't disobey him.

**

* * *

**

_The beast shuddered and stretched its new limbs in an empty, dark room._

_It had been too easy, and that was suspicious; the human's life had snuffed out far too quickly, leaving nothing but the soul's thread- although that in itself was not unusual; all spirits were bound to their bodies after death for a little while._

_So why did it feel a sense of... menace? Trepidation?_

_The beast paused, and grinned with a woman's mouth and teeth that had never been so sharp or threatening in life._

_No matter. Her protector was split, her soul fled, and her shell in his possession._

_This world was its for the taking..._

**

* * *

**

**End Part III**

**

* * *

****ENDNOTE:** Second-last part. I hope to tie up all my loose ends soon. 

Featuring a borrowed idea from _Constantine_ and various world religions and myths. Minus the cats.

(if you can pick what it is, I'll give you a cookie.)

I didn't intend to turn Aoshi into a one-man mystic answer-machine, but the plot demanded it, and I'm a softie for tall, dark and broody...

**:nudges reader towards review button:**


	4. Flying Us Home

**DISCLAIMER:** if I owned the Kenshingumi, there would be a lot more red-headed children running around calling out "Oro!" and hitting people with shinais.

**PREFACE: **it's finished. Hopefully, all the loose ends have been tied...

Un-beta'd, but edited as best I can. This time, spell-check insisted battousai was "boathouse", so please point out any mistakes.

* * *

**Something Wicked.**

**

* * *

**

**Part IV: Flying Us Home**

**

* * *

**

Tokyo rained. The world had been quite clearly been turned upside down as oceans poured from above, enough to fill and overflow from dry rivers, flood streets and leave the sky rain-sodden, spilling out into the air, to leave that too drenched and heavy.

Shutters were drawn and the streets were bare, empty- no trouble to be found here, this night.

Temple gates were drawn and bolted, but no visitors remained to be turned away by monks with dim lanterns and grim, drawn faces.

The brightly coloured streamers that marked the entrance to that most popular of restaurants had been taken down, wooden panels forlorn and water-streaked in the gloom.

No police roamed the streets- any crime would be committed indoors and inside the minds of men tonight.

It was not quiet; rain hissed in susurration as rivers over rooftops; wind screamed through empty alleyways and stirred up wet leaves in whirling, twisting spirals.

The world flashed in black and white as lightning scorched through wet air.

The doors to the Kamiya dojo were bolted.

Time did not still, but the hearts of those inside beat slower.

* * *

_It was dawn, or just past, although it was hard to tell with a dark red sky._

_There was wind, but her clothing remained unruffled- such disturbance as there was seemed more internal than anything else._

_Kenshin was quiet, and though his steps were deliberately slow, there were neither twigs nor leaves to crunch beneath his feet._

_Trees flicked past them. If they walked in a circle, she could not tell for the unbroken line of shadowy trunks and wraithlike branches that ran on before them, behind them, around them._

I will go home. I will go home. I must. I will not stay here.

"_Kaoru-dono...? We are lost. I do not know if there is a way out of here at all..."_

"_There will be. If there isn't, I'll make one. I will not die here, Kenshin."_

_Kenshin shivered, and felt that bright spark burn higher, flare brighter._

_That shuddering void inside him wanted to reach out to that flame, curl himself around it and sink into its warmth._

_But he would not. The nature of a samurai is control, and though he was but a wanderer, he would still master himself._

_Her steps should have echoed but were silent in the dead forest._

_

* * *

_

Misao woke with a mouth that tasted of cotton and a tall man watching her. If she had not known who he was, she would have stiffened, relaxed, flipped from mussed blankets and thin futon, landed on a broken ankle and fallen but not before skewering him with no less than six, possibly seven of the twelve miniature blades buried in the sash about her waist.

"You're still here?"

"I was concerned for you. Kamiya-san was your friend. Her death will have affected you. You cannot afford to be affected. Hence, I remain."

Misao's eyes did not narrow, did not scrunch close. Her gaze shifted to his clothing.

_Shinobi clothes._

Obviously he wished to be prepared. In the dimness of a night-lit room, it was difficult to see him; just another shadow among shadows.

"Whatever comfort you derive from my presence should be enough to calm your nerves and to let you do what must be done."

"You're not the Okashira anymore. And yet, you still pull my strings," she whispered, turning to peer through half-shuttered windows over a dark, wet courtyard. "Why is that?"

Aoshi ignored the question.

"It is not yet dawn, but the rain has stopped. I have not yet contacted the Aoi-ya. I believe the burial arrangements should be finalised before I do so- Okina will be sorrowful to hear of Kamiya-san's death and wish to attend her funeral- and I would prefer to have a date to give him."

"Fine. Do so. You retrieved my crutches while I slept, right? Pass them to me. I want to check on the body."

"She is dead, Misao. You cannot change that..."

"Who said I would try? Give me my crutches."

His eyes were inscrutable as always; transparent blue a pale shadow in the dark.

"Your wish... Okashira."

His voice was toneless, but even without inflection, she knew he was bothered by something.

_When have you ever obeyed me?_ was a whisper in her mind, but the crutches were in her hands and there was doubt, squirming in her heart.

She left the room. Aoshi did not follow. Eventually, there was a scream.

He did not run to her rescue. If there was fear in him, fear for what he would see, the others could not tell, and that would have to be good enough.

* * *

"_You knew she wouldn't be dead!"_

Misao was finding it hard to speak with fingers locked about her neck, feet dangling from limp and bruised legs, crutch broken and scattered across the floor, but she still appeared to have the upper hand. Whatever Kaoru had been in life –woman, dojo-master, hopeless romantic- was clearly absent from the corpse pinned to the wall by a half-dozen knives. The other six lay scattered across the floor, some bloodstained, some not.

"I had hoped she was dead. I did not think she would be. It would have been too simple if it ended like this."

Aoshi flipped one slender blade between slender fingers, making it shine in the dull light of a just-lit, sputtering lantern. He could hear Sagara yelling and footsteps shaking the hallway.

"What would have been too simple?! You're not making sense-" and then a grunt as an elbow hammered into the solar plexus of the corpse and blue-tipped fingers slipped from her neck. Misao crumpled on feet that would not support her to land on her backside on splintered, blood-spotted floorboards.

What had been Kaoru gnashed bloody teeth, but the wounds dotted over her body were only oozing, and not blood at that.

"You should get that shoulder checked out. Human bites are the worst for infection."

"Shut up with the smart remarks and tell me _what is going on!_"

"She's not exactly dead, Misao. Perhaps a better word would be... absent. Kamiya has been gone too long. If she isn't brought back soon, she won't come back."

"Gone where?" whispered Misao, rubbing her own blood over her fingertips, before smearing it on the floorboards.

"Where is Hannya, little Okashira?" and there was something frightening, something unexpected in the man's eyes.

"_Where did they all go?"_

Something a little like fear, and she knew that her once-idol, impossibly capable Okashira was unsure as what to do next.

But by then the others had already split open the shoji to see what was going on, and the corpse of Kamiya Kaoru had torn free of the wall.

* * *

I will not be defeated by a forest. And not even a real forest at that.

_The trees were scorching, burning, crumbling behind her. He wondered if she noticed the ashes that fell beneath her feet, which coated the ground with grey shadows._

_The sky was cracked and streaked with lines against a red lacquer surface. The sun could not be seen, and there was no heat to be felt of it, but she burned._

_If he stepped to close, he might roast himself in her terrible, righteous –and if any one was deserving of that word, she was- fury._

_Shadows did not exactly flee before her, but she crashed through them with graceless haste, ignoring clutching, dragging branches, and her feet rang solid, determined steps._

_The world behind her trembled into nothing. She was going home, and would stop for no one._

"_Kenshin, keep up. I'm not leaving you behind."_

_He broke into a half-jog to match her stride, and left watching the forest behind them to the spirits that clustered behind splintering, shattering rocks and mounds of earth._

"_I want to be there by nightfall. I will not spend another night here."_

"_Yes, Kaoru-dono."_

_He smiled at her, but she did not look back to see._

You never look back, Kaoru. And I... I think that will save us.

* * *

Sano was the first to fall. He had not expected to find the beast in the body of a girl he knew, and ever useless against female opponents, crunched through the thin walls and tumbled onto damp grass, and went still.

The punch she had thrown should not have lifted him off his feet, let alone the ground; sheer height and weight should have kept him stable.

She should not have been able to thrust fingers into his gut hard enough for blood to vomit over her. No woman her size and weight could have, excepting the fact that she just did.

Megumi screamed again, and was pushed aside by a wide-eyed Battousai, hands trembling over the hilt of the sakabatou. Behind him, Yahiko stared agape, shinai thrown over sleeping robes and hair wildly disarrayed. There appeared to be dried tear tracks on his face, but no one had time to comment.

"What...?"

"Don't just stand there, Himura, do something!" screamed Misao, launching herself onto the back of the beast, wobbling and tearing through bloody, black-stained silk with small blades. Unsteady, she shrieked in pain as a hand snatched her broken ankle, flipped her off and threw her out the wall to tumble onto to Sano's still form.

The kunai she'd managed to dig into cold flesh quivered violently, and whatever was in Kaoru turned to face the men in the doorway.

"There's not enough room to fight in here. The ceiling is too low, the walls too closed in. I will lure her to the dojo, you get Sagara and Misao. Takani should be alright if she's clever enough to stay out of the way."

"Shinomori-"

"No time to talk, you fool. Just do it!" snarled Aoshi, throwing wrists up to cast wires over the unsteadily lurching form. The corpse jerked, tangled in thin ribbons of metal, and being dragged towards the door by force alone, wailed as high-pitched as tearing silk. Something black dripped along the wires attached to Aoshi's arms, and he grunted, falling to one knee to pull the creature closer.

"Myojin! Go and open up the dojo!"

"Uh, right!"

Battousai ran, blurring past them to somersault out the hole in the wall, land with a damp _splat_ and scatter fragments of wood over muddy lawn.

"Sanosuke! Misao!"

Both were still, the grass beneath them glistening wetly, stained a dark red. Misao was light enough to sling over his shoulder, Sano too heavy to lift, and he was forced to drag him, wasting painful seconds and quite a lot of blood.

"Megumi! I need help!"

"Kensh- Battousai! Try to stop the bleeding!" yelled Megumi, sandals clattering over wood as she yanked the shoji open and stumbled out onto the verandah.

Slumping Misao as gently as he could to the wet grass, he fell to his knees, pressing hands over the torn flesh of Sano's stomach. Sanosuke, unconscious, twitched a little but didn't make a sound as his hands sunk up their wrists in pooling blood.

"Here- keep the pressure on, I'll try bandages," ordered Megumi, tearing the sleeves of her silken sleep robe with sharp, white teeth.

"Hold your hands steady," she snapped as he jerked his head up to hear a shuddering roar rip through the dojo, as tiles burst upwards from the roof to clatter and smash onto the ground below.

"Kaoru-" began Battousai but never finished as Megumi yanked his hands out of the wound, stuffing wads of silk into gaping flesh.

"Shinomori is willing to die to save Kaoru, as will Sanosuke if you don't help me!"

Battousai shuddered.

"She- I-"

"Now is not the time for a mental breakdown! Go to my room, get my bag, and get back here! Now! Go!"

Battousai, unable to do anything else, ran.

* * *

_There was a road now, and it was not paved in bones, or anything so melodramatic. There were shadows though, and sometimes, if she looked hard enough, she could see their faces._

_It wasn't a good idea to do so, because no one wants to see the faces of those as lost in death as they were in life..._

"_Battousai said that this was a dead place."_

_Kenshin's footsteps stopped, and she turned back to see why. He was paused, crouching down, fingers trailing through burnt earth._

"_There is no life in the soil. The trees are wooden shells. We have seen no animals, and there are shadows behind us. Kaoru-dono, this place is not just dead; it has never been alive."_

_He stood and dusted his hands, and in the still air she could see the dust fall, slowly and in spirals to the ground._

"_I think I'm dead, Kenshin."_

_He closed his eyes, and somehow, she found herself in his arms. He was warm, and that surprised her; she realised that for a while, she'd thought all warmth leached from the world._

"_Maa, maa, little bird. How could you be dead if I can hear your heartbeat?", and she heard it too, an insistent _thrum-thrum _in her ears._

"_Little bird, you are alive. Far from home, but alive. Why do you flicker now when just moments ago, you burnt so bright? I have faith, little bird, that you will fly us home."_

_His hands sighed over her hair, over her shoulders and came to rest in the curve of her back._

"_You will see us home, Kaoru. I know it."_

_She wasn't sure how long the stood like that, how long she spent cradled in warm arms and so distant from the shadows that clouded their footsteps, but when he did let go, when he did step back, she wasn't afraid anymore._

_Or rather, she still was, but it didn't matter._

"_I'm sorry-"_

"_-don't be."_

_She smiled, and it was far better than her anger, far more confident, if quietly so._

"_We've got to keep walking."_

* * *

"Aoshi! In here!" Yahiko threw the dojo doors open with a clatter, stumbling over the rails on the floor in his haste to get inside.

In reply Aoshi grunted, dragging a wriggling body that seemed far too heavy for its slender form down the hall. Red streaked down the wires that tangled his arms and cut into his flesh. Blood painted each awkward, lumbering step he took dragging the struggling, twisting _thing_ that was once Kaoru, but he managed to get her into the dojo.

"Yahiko, get ropes or cords- anything we can use to tie-"

He stopped then, tripping over a discarded bokken, and the creature writhed in its metal net, before rearing up, curving itself into a twisted bow. Aoshi, off-balance, was pulled forward.

There was a sound, a kind of _snik-snik-shink_ noise, and Yahiko would remember it for the rest of his life as the wire wrapped around Aoshi's hands shuddered, went taut, and sliced through them. Blood sprayed down, along with other, slightly heavier things, pattering onto the dojo floor.

There was a pause, and Yahiko watched what had been fingers on Aoshi's left hand wriggle across the floor. There was another piece of flesh, a long, thin piece- it looked like it'd been pared off with a filleting knife, although it wasn't moving.

Someone was laughing, a choking, coughing kind of laugh. It took Yahiko a little while –a few seconds at most- to realise it wasn't Aoshi.

"_Stupid, stupid meat-bags. Wire and ninja tricks will not stop me..."_

The wires snapped and for a moment, just seemed to float on air before crumpling to the floor. The beast stood up. Aoshi fell down. Blood wasn't quite gushing down his arms, but there was enough to coat the floor around him with it.

"_Stupid, stupid meat."_ Said the creature, and moving forward quite slowly, wrapped Kaoru's hands around Aoshi's neck.

And picked him up. It would've been comical, seeing the six-foot-something Okashira dangling from the outstretched arms of a five-foot-nothing like Kaoru, if not for the glazed look in his eyes.

"Hey! Ugly! Yeah, you!" yelled Yahiko, throwing the nearest thing he had to hand, apparently his shinai at the creature. It bounced off, and whatever was in Kaoru swivelled her head to look at him.

"Uh... oh, shit."

_Never throw one's weapon at the enemy. Oh, I am so screwed. Why do I have to be the one to save the day? I thought that was Aoshi's job!_

But Aoshi didn't seem to be doing very well, especially after the beast threw him upwards, crunching him into the roof beams and cracking through half a dozen tiles.

Clay chunks rained down, leaving a gaping hole. Dim morning light poured over them, setting the clouds of clay dust spiralling through the dojo alight.

Aoshi retched and spat blood, swaying unsteadily upright on knees, arms limp and dripping.

"Yahiko... get out of here. Get Battousai-" and Aoshi's eyes were on the beast, but his right hand was reaching, slowing, for the hilt that lay behind.

The beast kicked him, lifting him off the ground with Kaoru's dainty foot, and with a meaty thump he smacked into a rack of practice gear, scattering wooden swords and mats over the blood-slick dojo floor.

"_What use are swords if you cannot hold them? Her protector is useless. You are useless. Why not give me the body, Okashira? Give it to me, and I will not take you instead."_

"Hey! Did I say I was done with you?" Yahiko screamed, hurling a lump of timber to thump against the beast. Skittering across the bloody floor, his fingers closed on the hilt of his shinai, and he spun to face the thing that had been his master.

"You get out of her body! You get out of there! _You leave Kaoru alone!_"

And he felt scared then, so much more scared than anything- but he couldn't just leave her!

It was a noble thought, though the creature didn't care at all, but waved an arm in his direction. It was like being hit with a tree trunk.

Yahiko _crunch_ed against the wall, felt something inside him splinter into sharp, cutting pieces, and slid down in a slow, crumpled streak of blood.

His eyes were closed. The creature stepped on his shinai; it split with a loud _crack_.

Aoshi felt a moment of quiet dread. The boy was supposed to run, not try to fight! _Damn fool samurai-_

The creature stepped closer to Yahiko's still from. The boy groaned, barely conscious but still aware of the clawed, bloody hands that reached for him-

"Leave the boy alone. You want to fight someone, you'll fight me."

"_I already fought you. You're already dead."_

Dead eyes rolled to face him, glinting with some macabre joy that promised pain. One arm lifted, hand limp, fingers loose then tightening to point at his throat-

And then he couldn't breathe. There was blood on those ghost hands holding him, blood on the others around his neck, those grey, shimmering things which could only be seen through half-closed eyes.

Aoshi saw the beast, saw the beast and knew it was unbeatable. But by then, he was already dead.

_...Misao's going to kill me for dying like this._

* * *

_The gates to the city were locked and barred, and it was not any city Kaoru knew._

"_This is not Tokyo," breathed Kenshin, hesitating before the bridge that lead to the barred and bolted walls, "this is Edo."_

_Grey walls rose before them, and through cracks and gaps in chipped, crumbling masonry, dark-thatched houses could be seen. Crooked, whitewashed walls were smeared with ashes, some hand-prints of whatever occupants had lived here once._

_If one could live in a place like this._

"_Aren't they the same?" whispered Kaoru, unsure why her voice quieted on its own. Perhaps because of the feeling that this whole city was one large graveyard...  
_

_"This is no city I have ever known. It's so... different." Murmured Kenshin, and his eyes were unsure._

"_And that would be because it is not yet a city. Just a town, with a castle in the middle. Not so complicated, once you know to keep turning left."_

_To say they spun on the spot would be melodramatic, but they turned, and there Aoshi was, standing behind them._

"_Shinomori-san?"_

_None of his clothing floated in any unseen breeze, nor could they see through him. His hair moved a little when his head jerked in a brief nod, but there was no sense of the unearthly about him until he spoke._

"_Kamiya-san. Himura. I'm dead." His voice seemed disconnected from his mouth, as though someone else was speaking for him. It was a little disturbing to watch and Kaoru caught herself trying to turn away. She forced herself to face him and shivered._

"_How did you-"_

"_It isn't important." His hands twitched upwards, as though reaching for his throat._

"_You little dojo is dying, Kamiya-san. Sanosuke is probably dead. So is Yahiko. Takani-san is trying very hard to save their lives. Misao is dying too. I expect to see her here soon enough." He closed his eyes at the last._

_Kenshin whispered something that could've been a curse._

"_What is happening Aoshi? Why is our dojo under attack? And from what?"_

_Eyes of glacial frost snapped open. "I do not know, Himura. Kamiya-san's body has an uninvited guest, and you were cast out from yours. Perhaps it is due to those events..." _

_He shook his head, and this time, his fingers traced an unseen line about his throat._

"_Does it matter, in the end? Your other is trying to get her body back. He's not doing a good job of it." He sighed then, and held his hands up. "Mind you, neither was I."_

_His fingertips were streaming away like sand, pouring down his outstretched arms, dissolving into the dusty, still air._

"_Go back to your dojo, Kamiya-san. Go home, and take your body back. Please." His arms were down to elbows now, but there was nothing horrifying about the process; a simple kind of dry evaporation was taking place._

"_It seems I am not as dead as I thought," he whispered, and his voice seemed a little unsure._

"_But, Aoshi, I don't know where to-"_

_He closed his eyes, and a younger, thinner face flickered in his own._

"_The flower seller's stall. Turn left, go north and keep going straight. You should see the dojo there."_

_Kaoru jerked a little as the sand hissed faster, and Kenshin snapped out of his dumbstruck reverie to snatch her hand._

"_He was a castle guard, Kaoru! He knows where to-"_

"_Don't waste time talking, Himura. And, if you could, hurry?" said Aoshi, calm and reasonable even in death, if slightly more talkative- but little more than a head now, and after a few moments passed, not even that._

"_Kaoru-"_

"_Come on Kenshin," she snapped, running for the gates. "We haven't got much time, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let my first apprentice die!"  
_

_She did not slow as she ran over the bridge, and the gates shuddered once before swinging open before her._

"_Kenshin! Hurry up!"_

"_Uh, yes Kaoru-dono!" he shouted, and ran after her._

_If anyone had stood on the bridge behind them and watched them leave, they would have noticed the gates swing silently closed._

* * *

"I've done what I can, Battousai. I don't know if they'll wake up."

"Sagara won't die just now. He's on too big a winning streak at the local gambling house. As far Makimachi, she won't die till Shinomori does. You can be sure of that."

There was a scream from the dojo, and Battousai's head snapped up at the sound of Kaoru's name.

He looked over at Megumi.

"Go. _Go!_"

He nodded, and was gone. Megumi tumbled back onto the bloody grass. In the distance she could hear police whistles, and the rattle of carriages. Nearby households were waking up and wondering what the commotion was, judging by the shouting. She could hear Genzai at the gates, shouting her name.

She wiped her bloody hands on the grass, and leant over Sano's still form.

"You'd better wake up you great lummox," she whispered, fingers on the pulse that beat erratically, jumping beneath her fingers, weaker than she'd hoped, but strong enough.

Her instruments, bandages and various powders lay scattered over the lawn, green and springy through the mud from last night's rain.

Another scream from the dojo, and Misao, stretched out beside Sanosuke, twitched, breath shuddering out in one long sigh.

The dojo gate clattered open, showering wood on gravel.

"Megumi-san! Megumi-san! What is going on?"

Genzai-sensei's voice was a worried, mournful wail, but she didn't have to explain as the sky wheeled backwards, and she found herself falling to the grass.

_Must be shock. Not surprising really_, she thought, and then nothing.

* * *

Yahiko wasn't moving, and though Aoshi was twitching, Battousai was pretty damn sure he'd be dead soon.

He'd seen bodies do that thousands of times before.

Aoshi went still, and whatever had been holding him to the wall eased. The tall man crumpled like a paper doll, landing in a tangled heap, purple clothing glistening black with blood, some still trickling from grossly mutilated hands.

"_You've come to play then."_

Hearing that creature's voice tumble from the lips of his little bird wasn't right. Something hot twisted in his gut. He turned, and seeing the beast inside her once-blue eyes sent his stomach into twisting, roiling, shuddering rage.

"So I have, beast. What do you want with her?"

"_The woman? Nothing."_

"Then why kill her?"

She couldn't be alive now, not after being gone from her body for so long. He could feel something in him teetering near despair, and other, blacker emotions- but for now the fury kept him back.

"_Convenience, mostly."_

His hand twitched to the hilt of the sword on his hip. He wished for a katana, or possibly two.

The beast laughed, and the sound was a wheezing grate to him.

"_Why look so startled? You have killed many because they were... inconvenient."_

The beast began to walk in circles. He countered with the same motion, the two of them pacing around the bloody space left by Aoshi. In the corner, Yahiko groaned again, tried to sit up, and slumped down to the floor, face pressed into the splintered bamboo of his broken shinai.

Battousai blinked, and that was a mistake; something unseen but felt grabbed for him, and he slid backwards to feel fingers scrape through his hair.

His scabbard clattered to the floor; he was up, up high, and brought the ringing, silvery blade down in a blow to crush bones-

_---Wait! Kaoru- it could be a trap-!_

_What? Rurouni?_

He jerked out of the move too fast to land successfully, tumbling to the floor, sakabatou spinning out of his reach.

"_Why hesitate? It is inevitable. You will die. There is no gain to be made through postponement of the fact." _

But he wasn't really listening to the creature. There had been his other's voice, he was sure of it, and her name-

_Ah. The dead world. Maybe she isn't too far gone... but they will need time._

Slowly, he stood, found his sword and scabbard, sheathing the blade with a _shiiss _and _click_.

"So tell me, creature, do you come here for revenge? Perhaps you were one of the many men I slew as the Demon of Kyoto?"

The creature, if possible, looked confused.

"_What are you talking about, human?"_

Battousai laughed, and slid sideways into the stance that birthed his name.

"Oh, my other will not believe this. He has spent years running from those who would seek revenge for our crimes, and yet, the most successful of our foes does not even know who we are..."

The laughter stopped. His grip tightened, his other hand held high, fingers splayed against the light that spilled through the broken roof.

"Beast, I will show you why we were known as _battousai!_"

* * *

"_Wait! Kaoru- it could be a trap! You don't know that this is safe-"_

"_Kenshin," grunted Kaoru, pulling at the gates of her dojo, "we don't have time. How do we know the others aren't dead? Sano, Megumi-san, Misao-chan... If Aoshi was right, there is," a heave, and the gates creaked open just a fraction, "no time," harder this time, and the hinges shrieked in protest, "to hesitate!"_

_There was a _BANG_ and she was thrown back, crashing into Kenshin, the gates swinging wide. The air in this dead space rang with noise._

"_Come on!" she yelled, jumped upright, and ran up the dusty pathway. "Hurry, Kenshin! We have to get inside!"_

_Kenshin, stunned, sat and watched her for a few seconds –insofar as seconds passed in this place._

_If she was dead, if they really weren't alive anymore, just hungry spirits- oh, then, he could not tell._

_The flames in her swelled, burst, leapt high._

"_I'm coming, little bird," he whispered, and then really did run after her when he heard a scream._

* * *

"_You would hurt the flesh of your lover, human? I do not think you can..."_

And it was true the blows were tempered to trip, to bruise, to disorient rather than to beat, to bloody, to kill; but blows rained down, and the beast stumbled, flinging out shadow-hands to stable itself.

"She was not my lover, mores the pity. My other made sure of that," hissed Battousai, leaping of the still form of Shinomori Aoshi to deliver a snake-fast blow to unprotected feet.

The beast tripped, but something choked around his chest and squeezed. He tasted blood.

Another hand around his leg, two more to wrap about his arms, and his feet off the ground and his joints popping, cracking, burning as the creature began to pull-

_Little bird, if you are coming, let it be now-_

* * *

_Her home was thick with shadow, the halls running, oozing, slippery with blood, black in this grey world. Kaoru screamed, and felt claws, hands and things she didn't want to think about grab for her feet-_

_The blood was flowing in one direction, and she could feel the current around her feet, dragging her to the center of the building-_

Oh. Not there. Please, not there. Not where my father lived-

_But it was there, she knew, could feel it something wrong with her home as sure as her own heart beat._

"_Kenshin! The dojo! Head towards the dojo!"_

_Something was dragging her there, hands about her wrists, pulling her forward-_

"_Kaoru! I can't see you, where are you?" yelled Kenshin, somewhere in the shadows._

"_The dojo!" and the words were shrieked, shoji clattering open before her, laying bare the pulsing, quivering dark._

_Something hot snarled through her and she struggled out of the things that gripped her. Whatever it was, it would be gone soon enough!_

_Splashing forward through a deeper, thicker pool of gore, kimono soaked to the knees, she screamed with temper -"Whatever you are, get out of my body!"- and strode, head-first, into the darkling heart of it._

* * *

Battousai crumpled to the floor, dazed as to why the beast should suddenly drop him. He was almost dead, why should the damn thing stop just when his stomach had started to split open? His head burned, and it was hard to move his neck to see-

Hands. Dozens of them, flailing about the beast. Claws, and faces congealing out of thin air to scream about the writhing, twisting body that had once been Kaoru, lying prone on the floor-

_---Whatever you are, get out of my body!_

Oh, that was his little bird alright. Battousai wobbled onto his side, hand slipping in blood but finding a purchase of the slick floor, sick with agony.

"Kaoru?" he croaked, and doubted anyone could hear him over the shrill, squealing creature.

He blinked, and swore he saw himself burst through the open dojo doors.

_No. Not me. Rurouni. Or his spirit, at least,_ for he could see through him clear enough.

"_Kaoru- Battousai!" _Kenshin yelled, before running to kneel before him.

"You need your body back, yes?"

Even as a spirit, his other seemed determined.

"_Yes, I- I can't do anything like this."_

"I don't know what good it'll do you," he whispered, sighing, rolling over to slump back down. He could feel the heart in his chest slowing. "This body won't last much longer..."

"_Long enough-"_

_---get out of my body!!_

The creature screamed again, body backed against a dojo wall, hands limp but still twitching through the air. Outside, someone screamed Kenshin's name.

"HIMURA! THIS IS THE POLICE! WHAT IS GOING ON--"

"Battousai! Now!" and before he quite knew it, Kenshin felt flesh again, and forced his aching, burning hand to the sakabatou, Battousai screaming in his ears-

And then, the world slowed. Kenshin felt his head turn, of its own accord, and saw past the stunned, shocked form of the police chief, half-way in the door; past Aoshi, prone and bloodied; Yahiko starting to wake-

Kaoru, in blood stained kimono. Ghostly, and quite translucent. In her hands, a bokken, although as she turned to strike the quivering, cowering beast, before his eyes it became a katana...

"GET OUT OF ME! THIS PLACE IS MINE!"

Something like blood fountained through the air, and those hands were quite suddenly gone, Kaoru on the floor-

"Kaoru! KAORU!"

His feet moved without consulting his brain, and what the beast had been was falling, falling, dissolving through the floorboards, Kaoru-in-flesh swaying to fall-

He caught her. It was, at the moment, impossible for him not to.

"Little bird?" He whispered, and that was the ghost of Battousai in him, dead but not entirely gone, "Kaoru, little bird, speak to me-"

"Kenshin," and her eyes were still closed, her skin so pale and bleeding in half a dozen places, "Kenshin?"

"Yes?"

"When we get this place cleaned up, you're going to marry me. No ifs, buts, or hows."

She sounded tired, but still very much the same she'd always been, if a little stronger now.

He smiled.

"Yes, Kaoru-dono."

"And don't call me that," she whispered before, quite undramatically, falling asleep.

Kenshin sighed, and the world went dark, eyes closing to the sight of the horrified policemen crowding the dojo door.

_Kenshin slept._

_The dark world held no terrors for him, not this day._

* * *

"Himura, none of the excuses you've given me have made any sense! There are no such things as ghosts or demons and I highly doubt one of them came to your dojo for the explicit purpose of beating everyone half to death!" flustered the chief of police, brow tight with lines and sweat. "It is impossible!"

"Sir, I assure that I have not lied to you-" began Kenshin, lifting himself half-up from his seat.

"Please! The both of you!" snapped Megumi, brandishing a thin-bladed scalpel like a sword, "There is no place for such arguments to be conducted here! My patients –and you yourself one of them, Ken-san- need quiet!"

Looking slightly sheepish, Kenshin bowed his head, and watched with something like a smile as the police chief was shooed out by Genzai.

"Come visit another day, sir, when Kenshin and his associates are better. You will get all the answers you seek, then, I assure you."

"But-"

As the two disappeared outside the dojo gates, Megumi turned back to her bag, handing two large rolls of cotton to Misao, who sat propped up against a stack of cushions on the verandah, broken ankle wrapped in plaster, narrow waist swamped with bandages.

"You will need to change the dressings on his hands three times a day, every day, for at least two months. Morning, noon and night. No arguments. Aoshi-san, you are to let her. Your right hand may be mostly unharmed, merely the tip of your smallest finger missing, but you are to accord it the same caution as your left."

Misao nodded. Aoshi, cross-legged behind her did nothing, hands flat on his knees, swathed in blood stained cotton. Three fingers gone on the left, and a good slice of flesh from his forearm. It would take some time before he would handle a kodachi again...

"No using those hands. Not until I say you can. As for you, Misao, you are to stay off your feet. No walking, not even with crutches," she added, forestalling protests. "Not until I say you can. And mind those broken ribs!"

"But Megumi-san-"

"No buts!"

"But-"

"Misao, do as she says." Said Aoshi quietly, lifting his arms to inspect the bandages wrapped around them.

"Not you too!"

Kenshin smiled. The oniwanbanshuu, it seemed, were a hardy lot; Misao had cried a bit when she'd seen what Aoshi had done to his hands, but seemed to have accepted it, if not happily, at least with grim determination to help them heal.

"Kenshin?"

"Kaoru-dono," he began, turning in his seat to face her, and upon seeing the look in blue eyes, correcting himself, "Kaoru."

Out of all of them, she was the least injured, left with only a few cuts and bruises.

"Yahiko's awake. He seems pretty upset he missed the 'showdown', as he put it."

She smoothed her kimono down, folding her legs down to knee beside him.

"And Sano?"

"Megumi-san says he'll be out of it for a while. Later, she's going to get me help her move him onto a cart so she can get him to the clinic."

"Aa."

They were quiet for a moment, listening to Megumi argue with Misao over the correct treatment for a shattered heel. Kaoru traced her fingers over the wooden wheels bolted to the chair Kenshin sat in.

"How is this thing supposed to work, again?"

"I use my arms to move the rails, which moves the wheels, which moves me. Apparently, I dislocated my hip in the fight. It's been popped back in, but like Misao-dono, I'm not to walk for a while either. Megumi-dono is having one built for Misao so she doesn't have to be carried about."

"I see."

Things between Megumi and Misao reached fever pitch, their voices rising high enough to startle the birds on the dojo fence. There was a _whirrrr-clunk-clunk-clunk_ noise, and tow kunai and a scalpel buried themselves in scattered posts along the dojo verandah.

"You weren't really interested in the chair, were you?"

"Um. No. Where... where did Battousai go?"

Kenshin leant back against the cushioned panel.

"It's been three days, Kaoru. I'm surprised it took you so long to ask."

She was silent, waiting, eyes on her feet.

"He's still here," said Kenshin, tapping his forehead with a finger, "somewhere. Not like he used to be, but... more part of me, I guess. Does it matter?" he grinned then, in a way that Kaoru found disturbing similar to the departed Battousai, "having second thoughts?"

"About what?" she asked, wary, and especially after Kenshin grinned again, this time deceptively harmlessly.

"About marrying me, of course. I haven't forgotten what you said."

Kaoru, to her horror, felt her cheeks burn. Even after wandering the dead world, conquering her fears AND saving the day from the evil monster, she was still blushing!

She smiled a little then, especially when those soft violet eyes rested on her. If she saw a flash of amber there, well, perhaps it was a good thing.

"We'll see."

* * *

_The Kamiya dojo, battered, bruised, and perhaps a little weary –much like its occupants- slept easily, its dreams peaceful._

_There were no spirits come a-haunting, no demons to conquer, no fears to crease the brows of its inhabitants- just sleep._

_The moon was not full, not half, not thin; no stars glittered especially bright- the night sky was the same as always._

_Even so, the moonlight seemed to glow a little brighter on that familiar garden._

**

* * *

**

Fin.

* * *


End file.
